While the Eclipse platform is designed to serve as an open tools platform, it is architected so that its components could be used to build just about any client application. The minimal set of plug-ins needed to build a rich client application is collectively known as the <strong>Rich Client Platform</strong>.

While the Eclipse platform is designed to serve as an open tools platform, it is architected so that its components could be used to build just about any client application. The minimal set of plug-ins needed to build a rich client application is collectively known as the <strong>Rich Client Platform</strong>.

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== Case Studies ==

== Case Studies ==

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The Eclipse community has put together a set of [http://www.eclipse.org/community/rcp.php case studies] highlighting the use of RCP technology in a variety of real-world settings. More are being added all the time so visit page from time to time to see what's new.

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The Eclipse community has put together a set of [http://www.eclipse.org/community/rcp.php case studies] highlighting the use of RCP technology in a variety of real-world settings. More are being added all the time so visit page from time to time to see what's new. [http://joandavidson.wordpress.com/ DePuy Pinnacle Lawsuit]

Revision as of 11:40, 4 April 2013

While the Eclipse platform is designed to serve as an open tools platform, it is architected so that its components could be used to build just about any client application. The minimal set of plug-ins needed to build a rich client application is collectively known as the Rich Client Platform.

Applications other than IDEs can be built using a subset of the platform. These rich applications are still based on a dynamic plug-in model, and the UI is built using the same toolkits and extension points. The layout and function of the workbench is under fine-grained control of the plug-in developer in this case.

When we say that the Rich Client Platform is the minimal set of plug-ins needed to build a platform application with a UI, we mean that your application need only require two plug-ins, org.eclipse.ui and org.eclipse.core.runtime, and their prerequisites.

However, rich client applications are free to use any API deemed necessary for their feature set, and can require any plug-ins above the bare minimum. Examples include the Help UI, and the Update Manager.

For more details on what is included in the Rich Client Platform, see the RCP FAQ.

Case Studies

The Eclipse community has put together a set of case studies highlighting the use of RCP technology in a variety of real-world settings. More are being added all the time so visit page from time to time to see what's new. DePuy Pinnacle Lawsuit

The solutions to the exercises are in the Solutions branch of the Hyperbola projects. After loading from HEAD, use Compare With (or Replace With) > Another Branch or Version, press Refresh Tags, select Branches / Solutions.

Help Topics

The following are relevant help topics from the Platform Plug-in Developer Guide (from within the Eclipse IDE: Help > Help Contents > Platform Plug-in Developer Guide). The links below are to the online Eclipse 3.1 help.

Newsgroups

The following eclipse newsgroups have useful discussions, questions and answers relevant to the development of RCP applications.

If you have a question, please check the RCP FAQ before posting to the newsgroups.
Kindly avoid posting to the developer (*-dev) mailing lists as these are intended for use by the development teams and others participating in the development of Eclipse itself.

NASA/JPL is using Eclipse RCP as the foundation of their next version of Maestro, and more. See the case study, session 11.3 - "A Martian Eclipse" at EclipseCon 2005, and Scott Schram's blog entry on the presentation. Jeff Norris from NASA/JPL also wrote a nice foreword to the RCP Book.

Elsewhere at eclipse.org

Content is in the process of being migrated here from the old RCP Home Page.

Original Design Documents

The following are the original design documents for the RCP work done in Eclipse 3.0. They are somewhat out of date and are provided here mainly for historical interest.
The tutorials and help topics above provide better materials for getting started with RCP.